Dubious. Patents tend to favor large companies. A patent is basically an expensive ticket to a lawsuit, and a plausibly useful marketing claim. Small compani

Dubious. Patents tend to favor large companies. A patent is basically an expensive ticket to a lawsuit, and a plausibly useful marketing claim. Small companies with useful inventions can easily get stomped on by larger companies with large bankrolls. Yet it takes years and tens of $thousands to successfully prosecute a patent. Prosecuting a larger company infringing is often beyond the means of a small company, but if they are plausibly near-"infringing" on a larger company's patent, they can be sued out of existence, or the product killed by the mere threat. Perhaps a more sane patent system would be better, but it is hard to see how abolishing the current system altogether could tilt things more in favor of large companies.